Walking over the soft green turf at Berrie Down, he began to imagine he had done with tacking and veering, and hoisting false colours for ever; at last, it was going to pay him to be straightforward. If there were some things concerning the Protector Bread and Flour Company, Limited, which he deemed it wiser to keep in the background, still there was no necessity for beating about the bush. There was the Company—a good scheme, a tangible scheme, with no humbug about it; but rather, on the contrary, containing in itself almost every element necessary to insure success. Very different was this venture to any with which he had ever previously been associated. Hitherto, he had looked for nothing beyond what he could make by merely promoting a company. He had assisted to usher dozens of ill-conditioned, unhealthy, rickety commercial infants into the world, and when he had pocketed his midwife’s fee for his services there was an end of the matter. As a rule, these infants had either scarcely survived their birth, or else had grown up into disreputable swindles; and Mr. Black, having sense enough to know this kind of practice could scarcely continue to pay him for ever, most earnestly desired to get hold of something which really had, in its own nature, some fair chance of existence; and working it up thoroughly, make that a stepping-stone to future successes, up which he could safely climb to the very summit of the hill of Fortune. He was weary, not of the dishonesty of his previous career, but of its anxieties, its uncertainties, its never-ending, always beginning work. Though a strong and hearty man to look at, he felt the years spent in planning and scheming—in “raising the wind,” in getting “paper melted,” in running about praying for bills to be renewed, in staving off bankruptcy, in softening the hearts of obdurate creditors—had told, and were telling, on his constitution. He knew, if no one else did, how often he had climbed and fallen; how often he had touched Fortune, and been spurned by her; how continually luck had travelled with him to a certain point, and then, suddenly taken herself off in a huff, leaving her former favourite to retrace his steps, or fight his way onward, as best he could. How he had lain through the long nights planning; how he had thought in the darkness of ways and means; how he had racked his brains, marvelling whence help was to be obtained; how he had walked the City streets in rain, in snow, in frost, in the broiling summer weather, in the winter, when the cruel east winds were careering up Cheapside; how he had got soaked to the skin, and how his clothes had dried again on him; how he had turned into taverns, and drank brandy till he felt strong enough to go out again and face the worst,—all these miseries were fresh in Mr. Black’s mind; to all of them, he hoped, with all his heart and soul, he had said farewell for ever!